Derawar Fort is a large square fortress in Ahmadpur
East Tehsil, Punjab, Pakistan. Approximately 130 km south of the city
of Bahawalpur, the forty bastions of Derawar are visible for many miles in
the Cholistan Desert. The walls have a perimeter of 1500 metres and stand
up to thirty metres high.
Derawar fort was first built
in the 9th century AD by Rai Jajja Bhati, a Hindu ruler of the Bhati clan, as
a tribute to Rawal Deoraj Bhati the king of Jaisalmer and Bahawalpur. The
fort was initially known as Dera
Rawal, and later referred to as Dera Rawar, which with the passage of time came to be
pronounced Derawar, its
present name.
In the 18th
century, the fort was taken over by Muslim Nawabs of Bahawalpur from
the Shahotra tribe. It was later rebuilt in its current form in 1732 by the
Abbasi ruler Nawab Sadeq Muhammad, but in 1747 the fort slipped from their
hands owing to Bahawal Khan's preoccupations at Shikarpur. Nawab Mubarak
Khan took the stronghold back in 1804. 1,000 year-old catapult shells were
found in the debris near a decaying wall in the fort.
Nawab Sadeq Muhammad Khan
Abbasi V, the 12th and last ruler of Bahawalpur state, was born in the fort in
1904. This historically significant fort presents an enormous and impressive
structure in the heart of the Cholistan desert, but it is rapidly deteriorating
and in need of immediate preventive measures for preservation.
